Riot Requires Kernel Level Anti-Cheat Software
tuta.com
League of Legends and Valorant Players Being Forced to Run Closed Source Low-Level Software.

Vanguard, the controversial anti-cheat software initially attached to Valorant, is now also coming to League of Legends.

Summary:

The article discusses Riot Games’ requirement for players to install their Vanguard anti-cheat software, which runs at the kernel level, in order to play their games such as League of Legends and Valorant. The software aims to combat cheating by scanning for known vulnerabilities and blocking them, as well as monitoring for suspicious activity while the game is being played. However, the use of kernel-level software raises concerns about privacy and security, as it grants the company complete access to users’ devices.

The article highlights that Riot Games is owned by Tencent, a Chinese tech giant that has been involved in censorship and surveillance activities in China. This raises concerns that Vanguard could potentially be used for similar purposes, such as monitoring players’ activity and restricting free speech in-game.

Ultimately, the decision to install Vanguard rests with players, but the article urges caution and encourages players to consider the potential risks and implications before doing so.

  • @[email protected]English
    9•4 months ago

    Installing almost anything* on Windows requires the equivalent of sudo, same as Linux.

    I feel like you’re not sure how system software like ssh and a user’s personal game software can install differently in different places, and where one needs no root access to install at all. Go see how mac does it.

    • @davidgroEnglish
      1•4 months ago

      I get it for Linux and Windows (though I don’t know how MacOS does it) my context here (which I should have been more explicit about) is “ordinary user is installing a closed source commercial large game” (with its own installer) and doesn’t know if they are also getting a free rootkit.

      Sure when it’s something you compile yourself and you have some knowledge you can ./configure it to go under your home directory and not need sudo to make install later, but a game with a script or binary you need to run is likely to ask for root on launch (Especially on Windows) and maybe asks later or has command line options for a single user install, but we can assume the user does whatever is default.